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Athletics History Timeline

The document provides a timeline of significant events in the history and development of track and field/athletics from 776 BC to the present: - 776 BC - The ancient Olympic Games began in Greece with a foot race as the sole event. Additional events were gradually added over subsequent games. - 490 BC - The marathon distance was established to commemorate Pheidippides' run to inform Sparta of the Persian invasion of Marathon. - 5th century BC - The Olympic festival grew to a five-day program with events like running, long jump, wrestling, boxing, and horse racing. - 1876 - The first US national track and field championships were held. International governing bodies were later

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Treks Briones
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640 views1 page

Athletics History Timeline

The document provides a timeline of significant events in the history and development of track and field/athletics from 776 BC to the present: - 776 BC - The ancient Olympic Games began in Greece with a foot race as the sole event. Additional events were gradually added over subsequent games. - 490 BC - The marathon distance was established to commemorate Pheidippides' run to inform Sparta of the Persian invasion of Marathon. - 5th century BC - The Olympic festival grew to a five-day program with events like running, long jump, wrestling, boxing, and horse racing. - 1876 - The first US national track and field championships were held. International governing bodies were later

Uploaded by

Treks Briones
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TIMELINE OF THE SIGNIFICANT EVENT OF HISTORICAL AND DEVELOPMENT

ATHLETICS
BACKGROUND OF TRACK AND FIELD OR
ATHLETICS

776 BC
The ancient Olympic Games began.

When Koroibos, a cook from the nearby city of Elis, won


the stadium race, a foot race 600 feet long. According
to some literary traditions, this was the only athletic
event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals.

490 BC
The race commemorates the run of Pheidippides, an
ancient “day runner” who carried the news of the
Persian landing at the Marathon of 490 BC to Sparta (a
distance of 149 miles) in order to enlist help for the
battle. According to the fifth-century BC ancient Greek
historian Herodotus, Pheidippides delivered the news to
the Spartans the next day.
5TH CENTURY BC
The religious festival consisted of a five-day program.
The athletic events included three foot races (stadion,
diaulos, and dolichos) as well as the pentathlon (five
contests: discus, javelin, long jump, wrestling, and foot
race), pugme (boxing), pale (wrestling), pankration, and
the hoplitodromos. Also, Equestrian events like tethrippon
and the keles.
1876
The New York Athletic Club from the United States
organized the first USA Outdoor Track and Field
Championship back in 1876.
1880
Amateur Athletic Association of England organized the
annual AAA Championship.
1896
The marathon is a modern event that was first introduced
in the Modern Olympic Games of 1896 in Athens, a race
from Marathon—northeast of Athens—to the Olympic
Stadium, a distance of 42.195 kilometers
Summer Olympic Games.

1908
The distance of the modern marathon was standardized
as 26 miles and 385 yards or 42.195 kilometers when the
Olympic Games were held in London.
1912
The International Amateur Athletic Federation or
IAAF was founded and as such it became the
international governing body for track and field.
1921
Up until the early 1920s, track and field was only a male
sport. Women became part of athletics only after the
women’s sports movement organized the Women’s World
Games.
1928
Women for the first time participated in track and field
competitions at the Olympic Games back in 1928
Summer Olympic Games.
1982
Officially, International Amateur Athletic Federation abandoned the
notion of amateurism and it became the organization of professional
athletes. Following that, the next year marked the first year in which the
first IAAF World Championship in Athletics was held and from that
moment, the popularity of athletics and athletes continued to grow and
today they are among the most respected athletes in any sport.

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